99 years ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained that free speech did not extend to the right to yell fire in a crowded theater.
Alex Jones and InfoWars by yelling about the existence of numerous non-existent fires has forfeited its spot in the free press.

The general switch in funding philosophy has changed the entire business.
A number of colleges had what they considered to be a "comfortable size".
A top or one of the top publics in a state might take the top 5,000 (or 10,000) freshmen applicants each year because their infrastructure was such that they could handle that many freshmen without needing additional classroom space, dorm space, cafeteria space or hiring any additional instructional staff. The school generally broke ties by choosing the in-state kid because they were well supported by the state so fewer worries the in-state kid would have trouble making a tuition payment down the road or leave because of cost.
Whatever your number was you took that many off the top of the applicant pool. If you had a good number and a good endowment, nearly everyone got some scholarship money.
The rest of the state schools would generally just do the same except further down the food chain.
Now you have Alabama and Arkansas admitting more out-of-state freshmen than in-state. They really don't want the in-state kid because the gap between in and out-of-state tuition makes the out-of-state kid more profitable.
They tend to set a combination of GPA and test score for unconditional admission. If you have the infrastructure to take 10,000 freshmen and 12,000 meet unconditional admission standards, bring 'em on in. You go tell the legislature that golly gee we raised our admission standards but the number is increasing and you can usually find money for a new dorm or classroom and if you can't that's OK too because you probably have a plot of land that you aren't using and some private developer will happily take a 30-50 year ground lease to build a dorm and maybe even classroom space for you and take a piece of the action. No need to even get legislative approval, we will build private facilities. If you have enough demand, the developer will buy land next to the school to build those dorms and get a contract with the school and the school will collect the dorm fees out of the student loan check and send it to the developer.
So the schools with a strong brand no longer care about keeping their admissions within the range of their infrastructure. They'll build more. The admission standards create the idea of exclusivity but those top in-state schools are actually becoming less exclusive because they promise meet these criteria and you are in where in the past the school would say meet these standards to be considered to keep up the sham of being open to all state residents but then hard capped the number.

Here is what happened to higher education.
Many elected officials wanted to bring "market" concepts to higher ed. The real motivation for some was adherence to principle, others expected students would punish those loud mouth liberal professors by going elsewhere and some wanted to just find a way to funnel government money to religious institutions.
So money was put in student hands with scholarships, grants and loans.
Students are generally ill equipped to assess if a school offers a good education but they are able to determine if they have to walk down the hall to take a dump or get an apartment like experience in a dorm, they can determine whether is a nice workout center and what fast food they can buy at the student union, and see whether or not there is good, fast, stable wifi or a an entertaining athletic department.
So schools divert resources to amenities to attract students and compete in the market.
Those have to be paid for and the student is now less price sensitive thanks to the funds in hands. So tuition and fees rise to pay for things that have nothing to do with educating.
The government outlay really hasn't changed in most states or grown slowly all that changed was who got the money first.

And the thing is people STILL gave Bliss shots.
Allen Academy hired him and he got suspended for forging eligibility paperwork and recruiting.
He gets two more jobs at church affiliated schools after two significant scandals.
Southwestern Christian hired him but then when everyone got reminded thanks to the documentary he was out.
Then gets hired at Calvary Chapel in Las Vegas.
Through all that he was welcomes as church speaker and speaker for the Texas High School Coaches Association.

Until last year, the Salukis were AState's third most played opponent in football.
Back in the 80's when SIU was being named a top party campus I remember watching the coaches show and the first half highlights were hard to see because of the smoke from all the grills, wind finally changed directions. Friends who went up there said there was easily 20,000 people outside the stadium grilling and drinking with the game on the radio and maybe 7,000 inside the stadium.

Man I know longer understand the world around me.
Baylor has a player murdered and the coach tries to paint him as a drug dealer to explain all the improper benefits that will be found at his apartment. Then that coach gets a job coaching at a Christian high school.
Baylor doesn't just cover up sexual assaults, the school tells the victims that if they don't tell the truth they can't do anything and if they do tell the truth and it includes breaking the honor code the victims can be punished including expulsion. The AD involved get a job as AD at Christian school.
Baylor must be built on an Indian burial ground or they are experiencing the consequences of the soul sale to get in the Big XII but none of this crap makes any sense to me as to how it could even happen.

AState returns a QB who will be the school career TD pass leader sometime around the fourth or fifth game in his third season. Some nice transfers in at WR (will likely start an Arkansas transfer on one side and an Oklahoma transfer on the other). Return a defensive tackle who would have been the second fastest defensive lineman at the last combine if he had participated.
Four losses by a combined 27 points and out-gained the opponent in all four, just got clobbered with turnovers.
SMU was the only one that wasn't that close and our QB went out fairly early.
Face only three teams that had a winning record in 2017 and only Alabama is on the road.
Toss in 5 league titles in seven years, the 18th longest bowl streak in FBS at 7 consecutive years and sooner or later it adds up to someone giving you some respect.

There has only been one defense raised that has any degree of plausibility and isn't just outright poor pitiful me. That came from the AD who got snatched up to be AD at Liberty.
He contends that the sexual assault problems and the lack of university effort to do anything were actually campus wide and the school tried to contain it within football to head off a deeper look at the overall problem.
Given that complaining witnesses were threatened with honor code violations for "causing" assaults I find it plausible that Baylor did in fact have a widespread problem and created an environment for it to flourish when word spread that filing a complaint would place you at risk of punishment.

On paper Anderson looks good. 2014 wasn't a great season but a great coaching job, had to start a true freshman on the defensive line, the next year the kid was #2 on the depth chart, going into junior year he was #3. The turmoil clobbered recruiting. But 2016 and 2017 when you drop 7 games where you out-gained your opponent or (like 2016) return four of five on the OL with several all-conference players and rushing goes down and sacks go up. Something is wrong. Anderson lost his OL coach and his OC (now OC at Florida State) and has been stumbling ever since.

Regarding the AAC.
If you preach P6 and inclusion, eventually the day arrives when fans are tired of hearing about it and never seeing it. Their anger is going to turn to the AD because he failed. Their president and AD for failing to get it done also.
There is a reason why most smart business people adhere to the idea of under-promise and over-deliver. The AAC isn't going to be able to deliver so why build your marketing around something you have no control over and almost certainly cannot deliver?
The Sun Belt?
Right now there are two coaches I expect to see be the next to hit the coaching powerball. Neal Brown at Troy and Scott Satterfield at Appalachian State. Really good coaches. Blake Anderson at A-State? If he lays an egg this year he's toast, serious talk among people with actual money that just breaking .500 and making a bowl won't be sufficient to buy him another year.
South Alabama made a good hire. Steve Campbell was very successful in the Southland and takes over a team that has managed some nice wins (Miss St and San Diego St) but has been plagued by an inconsistent offense. Campbell will fix that. Billy Napier at Louisiana may have been the best off-season hire, making real noise in recruiting. Figure three years max and he's off to big money.

It's a logical "on paper" prediction.
Red Wolves return quite a bit. Face only three schools who had a winning record in 2017 and only one (Alabama) is on the road.
But I have watched A-State drop 10 games in the past two years and in 7 of those out-gained our opponent on offense, losing primarily because of turnovers. Until Blake Anderson shows me he can field a team that avoids mistakes, I'm planning on about an 8 win season and a trip to someplace in Alabama for a bowl.

Every year there are guys who get hurt early in the season and might be cleared medically to play in the final third of the season or the bowl game if the coaches really wanted them back but instead can't get medical clearance.
I'm not sure that it isn't better to have that fiction take place because that guy ends up getting the chance to full heal and regain strength.

What is scary is when a guy completes his degree and wants to grad transfer and the coach can block him from getting a scholarship at his new school. Mike Gundy had a list of 40 schools that a grad transfer couldn't go to. I can understand blocking an intra-conference transfer or a non-conference you are scheduled to play. Can't remember where it was but there was a school in the Northeast that wouldn't give a guy a release to get a scholarship at any Division I.
The coach can take a scholarship away if he needs to make roster space but players didn't have the ability to transfer without being blessed.